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Nate Chute, IndyStar

Bins filled with ballots are stacked at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office as employees count ballots during a recount Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla.(Photo: Wilfredo Lee/AP)

TALLAHASSEE — Florida Department of State officials have asked federal prosecutors to investigate possible election fraud in Broward County and three others where Florida Democratic Party volunteers are accused of sending voters altered state election documents with incorrect information.

“Making or using an altered form is a criminal offense under Florida law,” wrote Bradley McVay, the state department’s lawyer.

The claims brought forth by the Department of State focus on altered dates on official forms used to fix mailed absentee ballots, known as “cure affidavits.” Those forms were due by 5 p.m. Nov. 5, a day before the election.

But records released by Florida officials Tuesday show voters in four counties submitted altered forms that show the ballots could be returned Nov. 8, past the deadline. The voters received the altered forms from Democratic Party volunteers, some election supervisors said.

“More fundamentally, altering a form in a manner that provides the incorrect date for a voter to cure a defect (or an incorrect method as it related to provisional ballots) imposes a burden on the voter significant enough to frustrate the voter’s ability to vote,” McVay said.

Federal law defines election fraud to include preventing voters from participating in a federal election "through such tactics as disseminating false information" about the race, as outlined in an Oct. 25 letter to the state department by Assistant U.S. Attorney Harry C. Wallace in Miami.

These irregularities are among the first identified by the Department of State in the 2018 midterm elections, which partisans have targeted with claims of voter fraud in the wake of three razor-thin statewide races having to go through a recount.

Republicans have accused some Democratic election supervisors of adding illegal ballots into the vote count, ignoring state deadlines to provide vote totals and withholding absentee ballots from some voters. Democrats have pointed out that Bay County's election supervisor accepted about 150 ballots in the GOP-rich area by email and fax despite a state law prohibiting it.

Along with his letter, McVay shared documents with federal prosecutors that show email chains in Broward, Citrus, Santa Rosa and Okaloosa counties, where altered forms were sent with the incorrect dates by Florida Democratic Party volunteers.

“Please pass the word to the FDP that they can’t arbitrarily add their own deadline to your form for [absentee ballot] cures! This is crazy!!” Okaloosa Supervisor of Elections Paul Lux wrote in a Nov. 8 email to Maria Matthews, who serves as division director for the Secretary of State’s Office.

Susan Gill, the elections supervisor in Citrus County, also flagged Florida election officials to an altered form sent by a voter. Gill says the woman received a call from a number, linked to the state Democratic party, before she was sent a form that was altered.

“It was a very unusual thing to have happened, which is why I reported it,” Gill said in an interview. She said it was the only irregularity in her county that she reported to officials.

Democratic Party officials did not respond to requests for comment. Wallace declined to comment Wednesday when reached by phone.

The allegations were sent to federal prosecutors Friday, and the letter was made public Wednesday. Along with asking the U.S. attorney's office to investigate possible violations of state and federal elections law, state election officials also notified the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office.

The letter came after state department officials have said election monitors in Broward County have witnessed no criminal wrongdoing related to Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes’ handling of the election.

In the letter the state department sent Tuesday, though, Florida officials said “certain irregularities” had been reported in Broward County and the three other counties in connection with the altered forms. That information was sent to federal prosecutors.

Three days after the date of the letter to federal prosecutors, Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Rick Swearingen told Bondi in a letter to her that his agency had initiated a “preliminary inquiry” into the midterm election, but the agency would not specify the scope of that probe. Swearingen's letter stated that he has never said he would not investigate election irregularities in Broward and Palm Beach counties.